The Above the Law tips line achieved a critical mass of Schulte Roth chatter after a summer associate meeting at the firm yesterday. We’ve contacted various parties who were at the meeting and the firm itself. Here is what went down.
Over the course of the meeting Jeffrey A. Lenobel, a member of the firm’s executive committee, told summer associates that offers would not be extended at the end of the summer program. Schulte traditionally makes offers to people on their last day at the firm — and this year the firm’s summer program ends this Friday. Lenobel told associates that Schulte would be making a decision on how many offers to extend at a later date, but some summers took that as an indication that Schulte would not be extending any offers.
When we spoke to Mr. Lenobel, he assured us that some summers got the wrong idea:

Of course we’ll be making offers. We just don’t know when we will and how many we’ll be making.

But will those offers be for 2010, or will Schulte join the ranks of firms that are deferring associates to 2011? More details from Lenobel after the jump.

Jeff Lenobel couldn’t say exactly what Schulte would do with its offerees. But it appears that some of the current summers got spooked when Lenobel told the group that the firm is considering “all options.”
While one option might be to defer the class of 2010 to 2011, Lenobel said that the firm had not reached any concrete decisions about anything. The firm simply wants more time to sort through the situation.
But if the firm couldn’t tell the summers anything concrete, why have the meeting in the first place? Lenobel says that the firm was trying to be straightforward with its summer associates:

We had the meeting to be as open and transparent as possible. All decisions will be made with regard to the long range future of the firm, and we wanted to do the right thing.

Kinney is currently running an exclusive search for an Asia GC role at a well known tech start-up company, based in Shenzhen. This company has received significant recent praise for their new smart phone device in leading medial outlets, such as the New York Times, TIME, Mashable, Wired, Yahoo, and Forbes, among others.

When was the last time you took a second look at your student loans? If you’re like most borrowers, you probably try hard not to think about them. After all, dwelling on your debt isn’t going to make it go away any faster. Or is it?

We’ve all heard how dysfunctional entry-level legal recruiting is: Inordinate expense, decisions made on the briefest of subjective impressions with opacity all around, and what do firms reap for all their efforts? Shocking attrition rates among junior associates. It’s time for a conference on what could work better, and this is it.

Are you a junior to mid-level corporate/finance associate who has been contemplating a move to (or within) Washington, DC? In response to increased deal activity requiring “NY (or like-kind) trained” corporate associates, the Washington, DC corporate/finance market is experiencing an unusually high demand for your skills. Read more, and check out www.g-s.com.